WTF is up with the Weather?

[Dr Mordrid]

Actually, NO!! If anything our weather is moderating !!


The highest and lowest temps for our area (SE Michigan) on most dates are from the late '50's and early '60's with a few spikes up and down in the '70's.

We now are having warmer winters with much less snow and less hot weather (90-100 F) in the summer. You might see the occaisional 100 degree day now and then, but nothing like when I was a kid.

Back then and into the '70's I can remember blizzards every winter with snow blowing up as high as the power lines and summers with weeks of 100 F heat. Nothing like that now, thank God!!

If this is global warming, bring it on!!

Dr. Mordrid

[Greebe]

Yeah really Doc... I remember as a kid it was alot colder with huge amounts of snow and extremely HOT in the summer.

Nothing like it use to be... but until this hype of global warming swept though the scientists were claiming we were coming out of a mini ICE AGE.

[Dr Mordrid]

And then there were also articles all over in the '80's that we were heading back INTO another ice age

I just wish they'd make up their freaking minds

Dr. Mordrid

[The PIT]

The trouble with Global warming is that there too many scientist running too many different models. How much is this done just keep the research grant going one can only guess.
So far theres been two notable different forecasts for Britain (Ones well published by the media that is)

1) The south east of Britain becoming a desert and the rest of the country also becoming much hotter.

2) Britain becoming much colder with heavy snowfall in winter with sub zero temperatures due to the gulf stream shutting down.

Take your choice.

[Greebe]

Gulf Stream shutting down?!... Now there's a laugh... it originates from right where I live and I can tell ya it's still there. Now whether it's being diverted by ocean current effects is another story.

[The PIT]

The gulf stream has shut down in the past. Now the present theory is that melting polar ice caps will do this again don't ask me how as I can't remember the reasoning behind it but was to do with density of water etc etc. If this stopped Britain would get a climate like labrador (Spelt wrong I know) and would be very much colder.
Another thing to remember that the climate on this planet has been the most stable for centuries and has gone through rapid changes form cold to warm. Either we've been lucky or the planet has settled down to a permanet warm spell.

[Greebe]

The aquafers that supply our drinking water have been low due to the drought in the south east for the last three years. This is where the Gulf stream comes from. So yeah I can see your point.. it's still there, just much lower levels than the past. Originally it was thought that El Nino was the cause of it, but now the meterologist are scratching their heads. Bloody fools can't predict the weather here anyways so that come to no suprise.

[Wombat]

It's not as warm as it has been in recorded history. I have no doubt that we're f*cking up our atmosphere beyond what our current technology can repair, but I don't think that most of what we see can be attributed as immediate effects of the damage.
For example, from around 1100-1300AD England had a climate warm enough to support large wineries, akin to Normandy's current climate.

[The PIT]

Must have been something the natives were smoking.

At the end of the 18th century we had the mini ice age.

[Dr Mordrid]

And only now are the models even starting to consider the effects of clouds and the the suns variability. Gee....the sun is a freaking variable flare star and they weren't taking that into their estimations

This has had a huge effect on earths climate over time. If you go back 2000+ years England and much of Europe was warm enough to have crocodiles and large cats. Go back a few thousand years further and north africa was forested and the Medeteranean was dry land and inhabited.

Most of this can be traced to variations in solar output and such geologic features as super-volcanoes (Yellowstone is one), the formation and drying up of large seas (ex: the Black Sea was formed in neolithic times), asteroid strikes and other large-scale geologic forces.

What's amusing is that some "scientists" dare presume that humanity has a larger influence on earths weather system than these forces.

When Yellowstone blows that might change their minds, but I wouldn't bet on it

Dr. Mordrid

[mdhome]

One of the problems with trying to predict the effects of global warming is that the earth is still coming out of its previous cold spell (we call it the Ice Age). Not only that but the our sun has its own cycles that can vary from tens of years to hundreds of thousands and these also have a large effect. An example of that is the collective image we have of Xmas in England. Several hundred years ago, winters here were far harsher than they are now and Xmas was always accompanied by snow. I have only known it to snow once on Xmas day and that was when I was a child. Not only that but we also know that those severe winters were a *glitch*. How do we know this? Simply because we have compared historic notes and have scientific data that suggests that this coincided with sunspot activity.

Although I dont doubt that there are problems caused by greenhouse gases I sometimes wonder whether we know enough about climate and climate control to do any real predictons. After all we can look at data and see the wide variations that have occurred since the dawn of man. An example is the drying up and sanding of the area that is known as the Sahara. From what I gather this used to be verdant and its destruction is not solely our responsibility. Not only that but some of the Earths most productive times from a biomass point of view have been when the average temperature was several degrees higher than they are now. These were times when we had no (or very diminished) polar caps and where much more of the land was far more heavily forrested than it is now.

My main concern in all this is deforrestation.

As an aside, someone recently said that if the Poles were to melt, then the sea levels would drop because ice has more volume than water. Anyone have any thoughts.

Regards Michael
[edit] what a pisser, it has taken me so long to write this that I didnt even read Pit and the Docs messages[/edit]

[Dr Mordrid]

Deforrestation isn't even as bad as the greenies had stated it was, not even in Brazil. More recent satellite studies show it to be a small fraction of what they presumed it to be. This was well documented in Bjorn Lomborg's book "The Skeptical Environmentalist". Mr. Lomborg once served as a scientist for Greenpeace.

Suporting this is the U.N.'s own statistics. The U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization figures show global forest cover has actually increased from 30.04 percent in 1950 to 30.89 percent in 1994. This trend continues.

As far as the poles melting, yes they are. It's a long-standing side effect of the same post-glaciation warming that has had them receeding for the last 20,000 years.

Can we stop it? No.

Can we slow it down? No.

What can we do about it? Stop buying beach-front properties

Dr. Mordrid

[mdhome]

If it gets as hot here in the South of England as some people predict then I think I will retire to my summer villa in sunny Milton Keynes

[bibble]

I live on top of a hill in Croydon .. i'm staying here

[mdhome]

Originally posted by The PIT
The gulf stream has shut down in the past. Now the present theory is that melting polar ice caps will do this again don't ask me how as I can't remember the reasoning behind it but was to do with density of water etc etc. If this stopped Britain would get a climate like labrador (Spelt wrong I know) and would be very much colder.

The cause was supposedly due to the heavy concentrations of rain water falling off the eastern seabord of the US. This had the effect of changing the density of the gulfstream and affecting either its position or depth in the ocean. What is frightening about this that it isnt a gradual process but is almost like a sudden on/off process.